Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Sociology and Anthropology

Committee Chair

Joshua Woods

Committee Member

Katie Corcoran

Committee Member

James Nolan

Committee Member

Elizabeth Cohen

Abstract

Twice a year, GamesDoneQuick hosts events that showcase the Speed Running Community, a sub-set of the Video Game Community. Since its inception in 2014 through 2021 GDQ has raised $25.7 million that has been distributed to the Prevent Cancer Foundation and Médecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders). This collection of studies analyzes the Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 event utilizing the Interaction Ritual Theory framework of Randall Collins to understand how ritualistic social action of this community has been leveraged by event organizers to promote successful crowd funding efforts that benefits organizations outside of the community. Further it expands on research into New Social Movements and Participatory Culture to frame and explain the motivations behind this communal process. This study provides evidence to show that interaction ritual chains are present, but failed to accurately identify the specific characteristics of the sacred objects present to link them to the success of rituals. Additionally, it failed to find a link between perceived identity markers of ritual performers with the amount of donations received at the event studied. Lastly, it takes steps to categorize parts of the social action present in the form of donation incentives and describes how those specific incentive types perform in relation to one another.

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